Illya Hicks, professor and department chair of computational and applied mathematics (CAAM) at Rice University, is among the inaugural class of INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences) Minority Issues Forum (MIF) Fellows.
Also elected was William Christian, Jr., who graduated with an M.S. and Ph.D. in CAAM from Rice in 1999 and 2003, respectively. Since 2004, Christian has worked as a mathematician/researcher for the U.S. Department of Defense. In 2018 he co-founded Paygevity, Inc. and serves as its chief technology officer.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the MIF board is celebrating the forum by awarding an MIF Fellow recognition to five members who have helped the forum grow within INFORMS, and for the service they have rendered towards MIF’s mission.
Hicks joined the Rice faculty in 2007. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in CAAM in 2000 from Rice. From 2000 to 2006 he was a member of the Industrial and Systems Engineering faculty at Texas A&M University.
Since July 1, Hicks has served as chair of CAAM. His research interests include combinatorial optimization, integer programming, graph theory and matroid theory, with applications in social networks, cancer treatment and network design.
The INFORMS Minority Issues Forum encourages minority representation in operations research/management science, develops ties between those interested in increasing the number of minority participants in the field and provides information about issues faced by minority researchers.